


Chêne Chapelle de Raison

by MissWoodhouse



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alethiometer Use, Gen, Oakley Street and Les Amis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-02-19 14:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22112050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissWoodhouse/pseuds/MissWoodhouse
Summary: A Story of Insurrection Against the Magesterium and the Restoration of an Alethiometer(because other countries must have their own Oakley Streets too)





	1. The Acquisition

If the gentleman who purchased it knew what he was buying – and it is very probable that he did – he made quite a convincing show to the contrary. He lingered in the pawn shop, deliberating for more than a quarter of an hour over a selection of cuff-links before casually pointing to the case on his right.

“And I’ll have that oversized pocket watch as well,” he said, not bothering to examine it.

“It doesn’t work, you know,” said the shopkeeper.

“Doesn’t much matter,” said the man, “a watch like that is more for show than keeping the time. If it doesn’t tick at me all day long, so much the better.”

“Really?” asked the shopkeeper. “We have a far better selection than that one. Why, I’m not even sure it’s got numbers inside.”

“I want this one,” said the customer, reaching out his hand to stop the shopkeeper from opening the catch. “How much will it be?”

The shopkeeper acquiesced, never one to lose a sale – even for the prospect of a better one. And this man, despite the bedraggled appearance of his hyena daemon, looked like he could afford better.

So the man left the shop, his new purchase on a shiny chain and peaking out of his waistcoat pocket. After all, where better to hide the most sought after item in the world than in plain sight?

The gentleman however, was not quite so clever as he supposed himself to be. For in disguising his new purchase on the end of a watch chain, he exposed it to dangers of a different sort altogether. Safely hidden from the surveillance of Oakley Street and the Magesterium, it nevertheless fell under the purview of your common, garden-variety thief.

\---

Well, to call Montparnasse garden-variety might be stretching things a bit. Ordinary was the last thing he considered himself to be. Once a gamin of the Paris streets, he had christened himself after the arrondissement of his childhood, and his sleek, feline daemon the Marchioness of Carabas.

Cara, like her human, hated getting her paws dirty, and everyone of their acquaintance was rather surprised she hadn’t settled as something with wings. Monty and Cara knew better though – in thieving circles, birds did all the dirty work, rodents did the spying, and those with great big bulldogs kept watch ominously at the other end of the street. A cat was more…refined. Oh, the pair could still pick a pocket like the best of them, but they preferred to meet their marks in broad daylight, as equals. As a careless dandy swinging his cane, Montparnasse could bump into you and rob you blind before you registered a single feature on his face.

And on this day, that is exactly what he did.

\---

Which isn’t to say that Montparnasse knew what he was doing – in fact he knew no more about the object in question than the man who had sold it in the shop. Only that it was a gaudy old watch, that would fetch a pretty enough penny at the pawnshop, but wasn’t quite grand enough to be worth the trouble of admitting that one had lost it to the police, or distinct enough to be traceable if one did. Why, it had probably been bought and sold and stolen several times over in its lifetime, or maybe someone only wished to make it look as though it had.

He flashed it to Eponine as a sort of brag. She was pretty enough to be worth impressing – and being the boss’ daughter would have been worth impressing, pretty enough or not. And it was lucky he showed her his spoils that afternoon, for it wouldn’t do if something so precious had fallen into the hands of Thenardier, whether or not he and his gang were capable of recognizing its true value.

But Eponine was not her father, and she had been to the meetings of the men who called themselves Les Amis – although friends to whom or what they hardly dared to specify. When she opened the clasp and saw the face of a watch with no numbers, a compass without direction, she thought she might know what was in her hands. And swearing Montparnasse to secrecy, she pocketed the treasure, and promised him a return on investment like he had never seen before.

Then, she left for the meeting.


	2. The Discovery

When Eponine arrived, the backroom of the Café Musain was in full swing – Enjolras had already begun his passionate tirade of the week, and the other members paid either rapt attention or none at all, as was their individual wont. Ordinarily, Eponine would slip quietly into a seat beside Grantaire – who always practiced the former with the appearance of the latter – but this week, she did something entirely different altogether. She caught the attention of the whole room as the door closed behind her with a bang, and strode straight for Enjolras, setting her parcel before him with a solid thud.

“You’ll want to open that,” she said, with a calm authority that could only belong to either a busy-body postmistress or a child well versed in delivering ransom notes.

They all stared at her. Gathering of equals though they were, no one had ever before interrupted the barreling steam engine of their leader’s sermons. It was an unspoken rule, divined in equal measure from respect for his ideals and the knowledge that most of them couldn’t have succeeded if they’d wanted to.

“Surely,” he replied, nodding towards her usual table, “it can wait until later in the meeting.”

Eponine held his gaze and her footing, “You’ll want to open that, _now_ ,” and only moved towards her seat once he had picked it up and begun to untangle its wrappings.

\---

Combeferre had wanted to work with an alethiometer since the very first time he’d read about them – it was better than philosophy, better than theology, an entirely different sort of science: the study of knowledge at its very core. He’d read every book he could find in the library, studied the known levels of meaning, taken every course that could direct him towards that goal.

Except, the problem with alethiometry was, you could only do so much studying without having access to the device itself, and access was…restricted, to say the least. There were five known alethiometers in the world – there were rumors of a sixth, lost so many centuries ago that most doubted it had ever been more than a myth – and each one was tightly controlled by one organization or other. There was one in Paris, but the University controlling it was a strong ally of the Magisterium, and Combeferre was far too outspoken a critic to ever be allowed near the instrument. Even for knowledge, he could not sacrifice his principles so far as would be necessary.

No, alethiometry was unlikely to ever be more than a castle in the air for Combeferre – an impossible dream. As such, he was struck entirely dumb as Enjolras unwrapped Eponine’s package on the table before him. Surely, it could not be – ?

But it was. The young man reached with disbelief and stopped his fingers inches from the object, as if worried it would dissolve into the air as in a dream.

\---

Enjolras had fewer scruples. He, perhaps, heard Combeferre’s small gasp, but not recognizing the object immediately, had no frame of reference for it. If Eponine wanted the item opened, then open it he would.

It was round and gold, too large to be a reasonable pocket-watch and too fine to be a reasonable compass. Enjolras disliked overly gaudy things, and was inclined to dislike this one too, whatever Eponine’s explanation for causing a ruckus with it.

The catch was banged up and bent, difficult to pry open until he attacked it from just the right angle. Then he opened it and was…puzzled?

It didn’t look like any watch he’d ever seen, or any compass. There were three hands – no four: three large and one smaller. Instead of four directions or twelve hours there were thirty-six plain white sections around an ivory ring. There was perhaps an echo, suggesting something had been marked on them once.

Despite Enjolras’ confusion, the whole room seemed to have gathered around him, as if drawn to the curiosity by some magnetic pull. Enjolras looked to Combeferre, expecting his usual ally in reason and found instead a look of wonder – no of awe.

“An Alethiometer,” breathed his friend.


	3. The Possibility

There was an uproar. Most of them knew a little of alethiometry, certainly – it was very difficult not to if you were friends with Combeferre – but even those who didn’t were vaguely aware that alethiometers were difficult to come by.

No, not difficult. Impossible. There were five, maybe six, in the whole of creation, and every single one of them was kept tightly under guard. Their history was bloody – never mind how holy the devices were themselves – with hardly a transfer in history that hadn’t involved a murder or five. An alethiometer, a real one, meant business – meant danger. If that’s what this object truly was.

It was hard to say for sure. It had the shape of one, certainly, with the same number of dials and clock hands as the pictures in Combeferre’s books. But beyond that, there wasn’t much of anything. An ivory ring, certainly, but no discernible pictures – in fact there hardly seemed to be any pattern at all to the vague scratches, carvings much worn away with time. The metal was dented and scratched and tarnished, and who knew if the gears inside still worked, or if they had ever worked at all.

This might be nothing more than a piece of junk. It might have been a poor forgery, filched from the rubbish heap where it belonged, or – long, long ago – a failed prototype or the efforts of an inferior craftsman, all of which would have amounted to about them same thing.

But the possibility – the idea that it might be more than that? Well, it was enticing.

\---

Combeferre’s castle in the air had always been a fellowship with the independent-minded Oxford alethiometry group – oh for a country that still respected scholastic sanctuary – but here, here was a gift he could never have dreamed of. An alethiometer right here in the café, with no oversight to limit his inquiry and no line of scholars to limit his precious time. And all they needed to do was figure out how to get it working again.

Which would be an adventure in and of itself. No one knew how they worked exactly – if they did, they would have made more of them. And because they were so rare and precious, no one before had had the nerve to take one apart and try to piece it out. There were speculations that alethiometers ran on that ephemeral and mysterious substance Dust – of which no one knew the origin or the purpose. Perhaps Feuilly would pry off the back and it would all escape like so many dandelion seeds scattered to the wind. Perhaps all the Dust inside had run out, and there would be no way to start it again after all. Perhaps the Dust made up the very gears, and then how on earth would one go about repairing it? What sort of alloy would that be, and was there any way to recreate it?

There were whisperings, about Dust, hushed ones in the most covert corners of the most secret and deserted alleyways. That the Magisterium was experimenting with it, or maybe it was rogue, heretic scientists who didn’t mind being excommunicated for their troubles. Whispers they wanted to harness it, to control it, to stamp it out altogether. Rumors that was divine, and holy. Rumors that it infected the soul like smog in the lungs – like original sin. How on earth might one even begin to work with a substance like that?

\---

Feuilly wasn’t thinking about Dust – he was thinking about gears, and borrowed jewelers tools, and whether or not there were miniscule screws holding the device together, and whether or not he’d be able to unscrew them if there were.

He was thinking about dust and grime accumulated over centuries, and gears that were gummed up and needed oil. He was thinking of polish, and elbow grease, and whether he knew a watchmaker's apprentice who might be trusted to enter the fold.

He was thinking about paintbrushes so small you could barely see the tip of them, and whether the surface of the ivory had grown too smooth to take the paint. He was thinking of turpentine, and linseed oil, and pigments, and how exactly he might have to follow the unseen lines of the drawings that had come before.

Feuilly didn’t muse about what might or might not be possible – that wasn’t the sort of question that made a lot of sense to him. You looked at a goal, and you broke it down into steps and parts, and you looked for who had the tools to make each one happen. Because maybe it shouldn’t be possible, but that knowledge never helped the bumblebee who was trying to fly.


End file.
